HM Revenue & Customs Change Programme

HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) Change Programme is responsible for delivering the changes and efficencies required by the Spending Review 2010 (SR10) (Opens new window) settlement, which is the money that the Government has allocated to fund HMRC between April 2011 and April 2015.

Over the four years covered by the review, HMRC will reduce its overall spending by 25 per cent. The administration budget will reduce by 33 per cent. Ministers have agreed to reinvest £900 million over the four years to combat tax avoidance, evasion and fraud. This will create around 2,500 additional jobs within HMRC's Enforcement and Compliance area by 2015.

The overall impact of the SR settlement is a 15 per cent reduction in the resource budget, and a 25 per cent reduction in capital spending compared to 2010-11.

HMRC has also made a commitment that between October 2010 and 2014-15 the department will:

• bring in £7 billion in additional revenues a year by 2014-15 by transforming its work against avoidance, evasion and criminal attack
• reduce fraud and error in the tax credit system by £2 billion a year
• stabilise the National Insurance and Pay As You Earn (PAYE) Service (NPS) and continue to reform the PAYE system by collecting tax and earnings information from employers more frequently to support the Government's welfare reform agenda

Meeting this commitment means making fundamental changes to how the department operates - a massive and complicated task. The department will be transformed through a coordinated Change Programme, ensuring all of the changes it makes fit together and that the changes take place in the right order.

What does this mean for HMRC's customers?

HMRC's approach is to put customer understanding at the heart of all its activities and plans, so that the department maximises its influence on customer behaviour as it seeks to achieve its objectives.

For those who are willing and able to pay their tax, the department aims to provide straightforward services based on online filing and payment. It provides help for those who need it, at the right time. The department relentlessly pursues those who bend or break the rules through avoidance, evasion or fraud.

Also, to counter criminal attacks HMRC will invest more in preventing, deterring, disrupting and dismantling criminal operations, and prosecuting more cases of evasion. This will include - strengthening authentication and validation processes for online transactions, deploying risk teams to ensure better protection of repayments against criminal attack, developing cyber-crime teams to tackle attacks on electronic systems and strengthening HMRC's criminal investigation response.

The Regional Review Programme: published material prior to March 2012